Oh, for flying out loud − airlines have to be told to effectively communicate with passengers.
Despite the protections provided by the Air Carrier Access Act prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability, a new bill may improve the consistency, accessibility, and effective communication of in-flight communications.
This week − in his second attempt − Senator Bob Casey looks to clarify accessibility features airlines are expected to provide in regards to in-flight communications and entertainment.
S.3473 — 116th Congress (2019-2020)
Although the text of S.3333 is not yet available, we can examine what may be included in the bill by reviewing the contents of S.3473 "The Airline Information and Entertainment Access Act" (a similar bill Casey sponsored in the 116th Congress).
In 2020, Senator Casey introduced S.3473, which would have introduced significant changes to in-flight entertainment and likely moved the needle forward in accessibility and effective communication. Unfortunately, the bill died without a vote (possibly for similar reasons that the Online Accessibility Act failed in the 116th Congress).
According to Congress.gov, S.3473 would have provided the following provisions for accessibility to "ensure equal access to airline information and entertainment programming for all airline passengers regardless of their disabilities."
Open captioning and American Sign Language
The first provision of the bill would require open captioning and American Sign Language (ASL) for information presented to passengers through a shared video display. The bill specifically references video displays in access aisles.
The requirement for open captions, which are captions embedded in the video and do not provide the user with the option of toggling the feature on or off, are likely intended for informative video content, such as in-flight passenger announcements and safety briefs. In-flight announcements and safety briefings are often provided on individual video displays and access aisle displays that are not controlled by passengers.
The bill would also require ASL to be included in in-flight announcements on shared video displays.
Both requirements should be easy enough for airlines to adhere to given the content is typically not dynamic and does not change from flight to flight − quite frankly, it's surprising that airlines are not already doing this for safety reasons alone.
Closed captioning, American Sign Language, and video descriptions
The original version of this bill also included requirements for closed captioning and ASL options for any information presented through individual video displays. Movies, television, video games, and music offered on video displays installed in headrests would be included in this requirement, as well as in-flight announcements and safety briefs presented on screens that the customer has control of.
Video descriptions and text alternatives would also be required to be available to passengers in video displays.
Including ASL may be a challenge for entertainment, but it's not insurmountable.
Control systems
If passed as originally drafted in 2020, S.3333 would also require airlines to modify the control system that allows customers to operate video displays. Passengers that are blind, deaf-blind, or low-vision, and possibly (it was not directly referenced) those who use prosthetics would not be required to rely on a digital interface for video display operation.
The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board would be tasked with developing technical criteria for video displays that include "a mechanism that allows persons with disabilities to operate the displays nonvisually."
Next to the ASL provision for all entertainment, this may be the stipulation that receives the most push-back.
Replacing video displays that do not include tactile functionality and are not accessible to prosthetics (more on capacitive vs. resistive touchscreens) would likely have a significant cost associated and could not be implemented as easily as building in captioning functionality.
In 2019 Aeroweb reported that the United States' inventory of commercial aircraft increased 0.3%, from 7,356 planes to 7,381 (opens document). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the average number of passengers carried on each flight in the U.S. was 90.26. Using this average for argument's sake (the Airbus A380 can carry 525 passengers while a Cesna carries only 4), we can estimate that there are approximately 90 video displays to replace in 7,381 planes, or 664,290.
Approximating the average cost of each headrest at $1,000 with installation, doing so would put the cost to replace every screen at about $664,290,000. Still, a drop in the bucket for an industry that represents 5% of the GDP in the U.S. (approximately one trillion dollars annually).
Of course, this cost is only relevant if the aircraft offers video displays at all − nothing in the previous bill implies that airlines would be required to install video displays, only that − if individual displays are provided, they must be accessible.
Remedies for discrimination
Finally, S.3473 (and possibly S.3333) included a provision for civil action in a U.S. District Court against carriers that violate the requirements of the bill, stating that:
"Any person aggrieved by the violation by an air carrier of this section or a regulation prescribed under this section may, during the 2-year period beginning on the date of the violation, bring a civil action in an appropriate district court of the United States."
Aggrieved persons affected by violations of the bill would not be required to exhaust administrative remedies before initiating enforcement action.
Conclusion
The original bill would have required all flights to include the accessibility features aforementioned, including those from foreign carriers. It will be interesting to see what that text looks like when it is made available to the public.
In any case, it is refreshing that lawmakers continue to prioritize accessibility but, at the same time, a bit unnerving that some airlines have disregarded the need to effectively communicate safety requirements with their customers at an altitude of 35,000 feet for so long.
We'll see where the bill lands this time around.
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